Waterworks
by Xmengroup-47
Summary: Angel and Colossus encounter an abnormal mutant on a routine mission.


WATERWORKS

Disclaimer: We, XmenRPG_47, do not own the X-Men. Otherwise, we'd be making a hell of a lot of money off of royalties, now wouldn't we? As it stands, we are all poor vagabonds. Or, at least, the author of this disclaimer is. The X-Men belong to Stan Lee and Marvel comics- however, any Original characters (As included in this piece, Aquamancer and Split) are properties of their respective authors, and SHALL NOT BE USED WITHOUT THESE AUTHOR'S PERMISSION. Since several people wrote this story, and it is difficult to stream-line different kinds of writing, some parts of this story may seem to have drastic changes in voice. Hey- you can't edit it all, right?

Chapter Summary: Colossus and Angel find an abnormal mutant on a routine mission.

Characters: Angel, Colossus, and Aquamancer. Hey, we're working with who we have…

Rating: PG-13, but it might go higher.

~~~~~

Kate ran from the lab. The thin white hospital gown she was wearing was torn, as was the skin around her ankles and wrists, but she wasn't concerned about that- only running… running from the throbbing and screaming and beating in her skull… was important.  
  
And they were following her.  
  
She wasn't sure how many, though that really wasn't too important. Three, in prim clean green uniforms, ran alongside each other, guns lowered, heavy nozzles glistening threateningly. They were shouting at her- not that she could hear them over the buzzing and chirping in her skull. Not that she would have listened to them even if she could have heard them.  
  
She wasn't stopping. Let them shoot.  
  
A door loomed up in front of her- more men in clean green, more lowered guns. More shouting- she threw both hands forward- and cool water assaulted her palms- and the men, and the wall, was no longer there. Between the gasping spinning of her head and the terror of what was behind, she couldn't stop to wonder why- she continued to run.  
  
Ground and sirens everywhere- an expanse of water before her. She raced towards it- stopped- it was a long drop. More shouting- she turned, raising her hands to defend herself from attack- and of course, to those in the green, it looked like an attack.   
  
The hostile nozzles flared and roared, and Kate fell towards the water, stricken.  
  
Guards searched the water later- for the body. They could find nothing. Slightly blood, frothy waters where she had fallen… no one could have survived being under water for so long. But she was gone.  
  
They would look for her.  
  
Friendly currents had pulled Kate far from the lab, and now, released her. She lay, floating face down, in a small tributary curling out into the woods- near where a few X-Men were finishing up a scouting mission into the deeper woods. The stream hadn't been there before.

~~~

Angel soared over the tree tops, every once in awhile flapping his great white wings, more often than not just letting the cool, gently rising breezes carrying him safely out of range of the canopy. It was a beautiful day, and there was no better way to enjoy a day like this than to spread one's wings and fly.  
  
But of course, he was on a mission… he forced himself to focus back on the task at hand, scanning the ground below with his keen, almost hawk-like eyes. Nothing yet. Of course, he didn't know what he was looking for… just that he was looking for _something_.  
  
A flash of silver beneath him- Colossus. Angel scooped his wings to catch air, and then slowly glided down in ever tightening circles to where his partner was standing. He flared his wings, and landed gracefully on the ground, clapping his long white appendages against his back and smiling uneasily at Colossus. He wasn't too happy to be back on the ground but…  
  
"I didn't see anything," Angel said, "at least, nothing important, not yet. I'm not sure _what_ to look for, after all, but I'm sure I would have seen if anything was amiss."  


"Nothing?" Colossus repeated, sounding disappointed. He would hate to think that he had been sent on a wild goose chase, and that the two had been sent out into the woods for nothing. He didn't have the same freedom of movement as Angel, and though he loved the woods, he didn't like how little he could see on the ground.  
  
"Well, we might as well keep on looking… it wouldn't do to go back to the mansion empty handed… at least, not until we've searched every inch of this place," Colossus said, dropping his steel armour so he felt a little less out of place in the forest.  


Angel shrugged, an impressive sight that included his great white wings. "Why not?" He said, and spread his wings once again, leaping into the air. He beat his wings wildly to gain altitude, and once he was above the tops of the trees, spread his wings to their full length and glided among the tree tops.  
  
"Hey- looks like there's a new river or something over here," Angel called down, gliding in the direction of the tributary that had been so recently created.  


Colossus glanced up at Angel's hail, and then charged in the direction the mutant above him was flying. He came upon the growing river so suddenly that he splashed in up to his knees before he was able to stop his momentum. "Warren, get down here!" He bellowed, when he saw someone floating face down in the water not too far away.  
  
He splashed over, and picked her up, preparing himself for a gruesome sight… but there was nothing. She was neither decayed nor waterlogged… in fact, she was still breathing just fine. He could see blood stains on her clothes over her stomach, he lifted her up slightly as he carried her back to shore- another hole in her back- one of the bullets had gone through, the other was still lodged.  
  
Angel swooped down, landing somewhat less gracefully than he had before, stumbling somewhat on the marshy, violated ground surrounding the new river. He hadn't seen her from above and now…  


"Oh no…" He said, mainly because there was nothing else he _could_ say. He touched the side of her neck- her pulse was strong, she was breathing- just unconscious. Was this who they had been sent to find? "Come on… let's take her back to the camp," Angel suggested, folding his wings and hurrying back in the direction they had come from.  


Colossus nodded, and followed Angel, albeit at a slower pace as to not jar the unconscious woman he was carrying. Once the two got back to camp, Colossus set her down on one of the temporary cots they had set up when they had pitched camp only a day before. He looked grim… "Someone shot her," He said, as if that was not obvious. "Do you think she's a mutant?"

"I'd say she is…" Angel replied, "or else someone dumped her here just recently. I would have noticed trucks or helicopters moving through here- and this far back in the woods, there's no way you can travel quickly, with an unconscious person, except by some sort of vehicle." He said.  
  
For a minute, he was silent, staring at this new, complicated development in their mission. If Professor Xavier had known they were going into the woods to rescue a mutant laying face down in a newly created river, he could have warned them… well, all they could do now was to try and wake her up… figure out who she was. She needed medical attention, but they also needed to know just what had happened so they would be better able to help her.   
  
He removed some smelling salts from the small and mostly ill-equipped med.-kit, and quickly passed them under her nose.

~~~  


Kate had been floating in coolness. Pain was there, but distant- relaxation and calm swirled about her in cold waves, echoing with the sound of currents and crashing breakers. Cold blackness carrying her away...  
  
And then, she was jolted awake.  
  
The pain from her wounds swirled back as swiftly as her vision- she jolted upright with a cry of pain, and then drew back in fright at the unexpected images floating in front of her. That in turn sparked more pain to blossom in her chest and stomach accompanied by the warm buzzing of the chip.  
  
She looked between the two men in front of her with horror. Who were they? Where was she? What was she doing here?  


Angel didn't need to be a psychic to sense the waves of fright and confusion that were issuing from the poor girl. He took a step backwards to give her some space- who knew what would happen if she lashed out at him? - And said, in the calmest, most sincere voice he could manage under the odd circumstances. "It's okay... we're not going to hurt you. Are you alright?" He asked.  
  
Angel's reassurances was hardly soothing, however, as Kate could hardly hear him over the insistent buzzing of the chip in her head. However, the two men didn't look hostile, and she couldn't exactly run or fight them, as pain was her master and wasn't letting her move too much. 

She slowly relaxed, only enough to slow the frantic beating of her heart, and nodded slightly at Angel's question.

Angel smiled broadly- at least she could hear them... she still looked terrified, though. "My name is Warren... this is Piotr. Who're you?" He asked, trying to sound as disarming as possible.

Kate simply stared at him. Speaking was beyond her... at least, she could not force any words past her lips. She was confused, and that confusion was slowly working it's way into panic...

Angel saw the consternation that flickered across the strange woman's face. "Do you _know_ your name?" He asked her.

  
She nodded once, briefly. Of course she knew her name… it was strange that he even had to ask.

"So can you tell it to us?" Angel persisted. Behind him, Colossus had moved to the other side of the tent, and was calmly trying to connect with Professor Xavier back at the mansion. They had both tried this multiple times before, but neither had been able to make a sound connection, either by state of the art technological means, or via telepathic communication. Before, that had been nothing more than an annoyance- now, with their need to communicate with the Professor growing slightly more desperate, Colossus was worried by the machinery's inability to work.

In front of Angel, Kate was wringing her pale hands together somewhat desperately, as she opened her mouth, trying to force a sound past her thin, white lips. She could get nothing, and simply shook her head, looking down at the ground in quiet revulsion of herself.

"Hey… it's okay," Angel said, glancing over at Colossus. The heavily-built Russian shook his head… the communications system wasn't working… they'd have to get this strange mutant back to the mansion themselves. That wouldn't be too much of a problem if she didn't fight them, which she wouldn't, as she hardly seemed strong enough to stand, let alone put up any sort of resistance. And her situation had obviously stabilized- the bullet in her wasn't causing too many problems, at least, not yet.

  
"Let's strike camp," Angel said, "I'll move her into the jet," he continued, and turned back towards Kate. "Do you want to come with us?" He asked, phrasing that not so much as a question as a kind of warning about what was about to happen. He bent down to pick her up, and carried her towards their small jet covered by local foliage.  
  
The jet's doors slid open as he approached, and he moved towards the back, setting Kate in one of the extra seats. "Now... can you tell me your name?" He asked, again.

The initial moments of shock and adrenaline had worn off, and Kate was slipping back into the warm silence that was unconsciousness.   
  
She blinked up at Angel's face floating in front of her, her eyelids pulling closed. "...k-kate..." She murmured, finding her own voice alien in her ears. She drifted off into the warm, buzzing unconscious once again.  


Angel smiled slightly- that was progress, at least. He moved outside to help Colossus pack up their few belongings- between the two of them, it only took a few minutes.  
  
"I don't know about you, but I'm more than ready to get out of here, Piotr," Warren said, surveying the remains of the campsite with a critical eye- there was nothing left besides the plane to show that they had been there.  
  
And, as the plane lifted off and roared back towards the mansion, there was nothing at all. Silence left the woodland clearing as natural as when the two mutants had found it.  


~~~~~~~~  


Joining this team is fast, free, and most importantly, fun. Come on… you know you have a little Berserker in you…


End file.
